nVidia video drivers FAIL, click for more infoDisclaimer: All answers and suggestions are provided by an enthusiastic amateur and are therefore without warranty either explicit or implicit. Basically you use my suggestions at your own risk.

My recommendation would be to get a pair of 4 GB Kingston ValueRam sticks. Either install them alongside your existing 2 GB sticks for 12 GB total, or swap out the 2 GB sticks (this should allow you to use more aggressive timings than if you fill all 4 slots).

thecoldanddarkone wrote:I suggest getting 8 gigs like the other's are saying. It's hard to say if your going to be able to get all 4 slots stable depending the setup since the modules are going to be different.

It should be possible to get them stable, but there's a fair chance the RAM will need to be underclocked and/or the timings loosened to get there, especially if all of the DIMMs are double-sided. The mobo might be able to sort things out by itself (I've had a couple of Asus mobos that automatically downclock the RAM if you use Auto timings with all 4 slots filled), but this is by no means guaranteed.

OP will probably need to decide whether 12 GB vs. 8 GB is worth a small drop in memory bandwidth. If he's not running stuff that will use more than 8 GB then going for 8 GB at tighter timings might be a net win over 12 GB at looser timings and/or lower clock speed. But even if apps aren't filling 8 GB the extra 4 GB will still get used as file system cache which should improve system responsiveness, so the choice is far from clear even in that case.

thecoldanddarkone wrote:I suggest getting 8 gigs like the other's are saying. It's hard to say if your going to be able to get all 4 slots stable depending the setup since the modules are going to be different.

It should be possible to get them stable, but there's a fair chance the RAM will need to be underclocked and/or the timings loosened to get there, especially if all of the DIMMs are double-sided. The mobo might be able to sort things out by itself (I've had a couple of Asus mobos that automatically downclock the RAM if you use Auto timings with all 4 slots filled), but this is by no means guaranteed.

OP will probably need to decide whether 12 GB vs. 8 GB is worth a small drop in memory bandwidth. If he's not running stuff that will use more than 8 GB then going for 8 GB at tighter timings might be a net win over 12 GB at looser timings and/or lower clock speed. But even if apps aren't filling 8 GB the extra 4 GB will still get used as file system cache which should improve system responsiveness, so the choice is far from clear even in that case.

Don't get me wrong I agree with you, but i've had situations where no matter how much voltage or clocks I wasn't able to get the ram to play nice together. I will say most of the time it's the "premium" sticks I've had the problem with.

just brew it! wrote:It's filling all 4 slots that is more likely to cause issues at rated speed, not the mixing of DIMM brands/models.

Why would filling all 4 slots cause issues? Why include additional slots on the motherboard if it's better not to use them all?

Signal integrity. Current DRAM bus speeds really push the limits of what is reasonable/possible to do with current tech. More DIMMs adds load to the memory bus and degrades the control signals coming from the memory controller.

It is not uncommon for motherboard manufacturers to state that the highest RAM speed your motherboard supports is only guaranteed to work if you leave the second slot on each channel empty and/or use single-sided DIMMs. It is then up to the user to decide whether they want more RAM, or faster RAM.

Server platforms deal with this issue by using registered DIMMs. This solves the loading issue by decoupling the DRAM chips from the physical memory bus; registered DIMMs essentially put repeater chips on each DIMM for the control signals. The downside is that this adds latency, since it takes time for the control signals to propagate through the extra chips.

nVidia video drivers FAIL, click for more infoDisclaimer: All answers and suggestions are provided by an enthusiastic amateur and are therefore without warranty either explicit or implicit. Basically you use my suggestions at your own risk.